3.2 The Material versus the Course: Content Requirement
3.2.2. Survey: Teachers and students’ opinions about the appropriateness of the material in
Language points
Questions Teacher Students
What do you think about the amount of language
points in the material?
Too
much Enough
Not enough
Not at all
Too
much Enough
Not enough
Not at all
Grammar structures 0% 75% 25% 0% 0% 85% 12,5% 2,5%
Vocabulary
75% 25% 0% 0% 77,5% 22,5% 0% 0%
Pronunciation 0% 75% 25% 0% 0% 92,5% 7,5% 0%
Table 3.4: Teachers and students’ opinions about language points. (Q8)
From the table above, it is clear that the material provided an adequate amount of grammar structure for students in their study as 75% of teachers and 85% of students agreed about that.
The material also had good pronunciation practice exercises that met the demands of students with 92,5% of them and 75% of the teachers being of the same mind. However, 75% of teachers and 77,5% of students concurred that there was a large number of new words about cookery presented in the material.
Macro – skills.
Table 3.5: Teachers’ and students’ opinions about macro – skills.(Q9)
As shown in the table, the amount of speaking and listening distributed in the material were enough for students in improving speaking and listening skills. These were shown by 75% and 100% of the teachers, and 85% and 92% of the students, respectively. The reasons were that there were various activities in the material for students to practice speaking and exercises for listening. In addition, 100% teachers and 92% of the students totally agreed that the material meet the content requirement of the course in terms of writing skill. Nevertheless, a vast majority of both teachers and students (75% and 80%) conceded that the content of the reading part in the material was far too much.
Micro – skills.
Do the following sub-skills provided in the material help students improve their skills?
Teacher Students
Speaking Yes Partly No Yes Partly No
Asking and answering questions 75% 25% 0% 95% 5% 0%
Talking about your favourite food or dishes, 100% 0% 0% 100% 0% 0%
Making comparison 25% 25% 50% 20% 25% 65%
Making orders and giving suggestions at the
restaurant or in the kitchen 100% 0% 0% 100% 0% 0%
Giving the instructions of the cooking recipes
100% 0% 0% 100% 0% 0%
Reading
Scanning 50% 50% 0% 67,5% 20% 12,5%
Skimming 50% 50% 0% 67,5% 20% 12,5%
Guessing 50% 50% 0% 67,5% 20% 12,5%
Listening
Listening for gist 25% 25% 50% 20% 25% 65%
Listening and choose the correct answers 0% 75% 25% 20% 40% 20%
Listening and answering the questions 50% 50% 0% 67,5% 32,5% 0%
Listening and filling in the blanks 50% 50% 0% 67,5% 32,5% 0%
Writing
Completing sentences 0% 75% 25% 10% 80% 10%
Writing letters 75% 25% 0% 90% 10% 0%
Planning menus and cooking recipes 75% 25% 0% 95% 5% 0%
Table 3.6: Teachers and students’ opinions about micro – skill. (Q10)
As can be seen from the table, all of the teachers and students thought that the material helped students develop speaking skill in terms of talking about your favourite food or dishes; making orders and giving suggestions at the restaurant or in the kitchen and giving the instructions of the cooking recipes. However, making comparison skill seemed not to meet the demand of students as half of the teachers and 65% of the students disagreed about that. For reading skill, half of the teachers and 67,5% of the students shared the idea that the material provided strong chances for students to improve their reading skill in such criteria as skimming, scanning and guessing.
The table represents that half of the teachers and 67, 5% of the students were of the same mind with the criterion that the material were suitable for boosting listening for gist while 75% of the teachers and only 40% of the students affirmed that the material partly helped upgrade students’ listening skill in terms of listening and choose the correct answers. This result is similar the analysis of the content of the material in the listening part. Concerning such sub- skills as writing letters and planning menus and cooking recipes, most teachers and student shared the same idea that students had chance to practice writing when using this material.
However, 75% of the teachers and 80% of the students thought that the material just partly upgraded the completing sentence sub-skill.
Text types
What do you think about the text – types in the material?
Level of difficulty Level of authenticity Easy Normal Difficult Like real-life
English
Unrealistic Theoretical
Teachers 0% 75% 25% 100% 0% 0%
Students 0% 77,5% 22,5% 95% 5% 0%
Table 3.7: Teachers’ and student’s opinions about the text – types in the material. (Q13) The table above revealed that the text – types in the material were suitable with students’
level. It was shown by 75% of the teachers and 77,5% of the students being asked agreed that the text – types in the material are neither easy nor difficult. Moreover, 100% teachers and 95% students shared the same idea that the texts were also authentic.
The subject matter
Table 3.8: Teachers’ and students’ opinions about subject matter. (Q11)
It is clear from the table that all teachers and a hefty 92,5% of the students shared the same idea that the subjects provided in the material were relevant to students’ needs in their jobs. In addition, a majority of teachers and students were of the same mind that these subjects were generally realistic, various enough to meet the content requirement of the course.
Layout and design
What do you think about the layout and the design of this material?
Teachers Students
Layout and design Yes Partly No Yes Partly No
The coursebook includes a detailed overview of the functions, structures and vocabulary that will be taught in each unit
0% 0% 100% 0% 0% 100%
The layout and design are appropriate and clear 75% 25% 0% 80% 15% 5%
An adequate vocabulary list or glossary is
included 100% 0% 0% 87,5% 12,5% 0%
Adequate review sections and exercises are
included 50% 50% 0% 65% 25% 10%
The materials objectives are apparent to both the
teacher and student 100% 0% 0% 90% 10% 0%
Table 3.9: Teachers and students’ opinion about the layout and design. (Q12)
The table 3.9 reveals that neither teachers nor students being asked approved that the coursebook included a detailed overview of the functions, structures and vocabulary that would be taught in each unit while the layout – design and the objectives were thought to be appropriate and clear. In contrast, some ideas from teachers and students indicated that they partly agreed with the criterion that the material provided adequate review sections and exercises. When asked about this, the teachers and students who partly agreed assumed that brief grammar points which were presented in the previous units should be added into the review units as they would help students in their revision.
Sequence of content
How is the content sequenced throughout the material?
Teachers Students
From easy to difficult 75% 60%
Recycling available 25% 25%
Various 0% 0%
Others 0% 5%
Table 3.10: Teachers’ and students’ opinions about the sequence of content.(Q14) As illustrated in the table, three fourths of the teachers and over half students (60%) agreed that the material went from easy to difficult while one fourth of teachers and students assumed that the sequence of content was recycling.
Time allocation
Six periods for each are …?
Teachers Students
Too many 0% 0%
Enough 50% 57,5%
Few 50% 42,5%
Table 3.11: Teachers’ and students’ opinions about time allocation. (Q15)
As shown in the table 3.11, half of the teachers and over a half the students asked affirmed that six periods for each unit are enough while the same number disagreed about that. Some interviews were carried out on teachers and students who confirmed that six periods allocated for each unit was few. The answers were that some units had long reading passages with a large amount of new words so that both teachers and students could not fulfill the requirements of the course.
3.3 The Material versus the Course: Methodology Requirement